135 – MASTERCLASS Navigating Microsoft’s Customer Success Unit to Achieve Your Greatest Results

Microsoft Customer Success Unit Leader Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

My mission is to help technology organizations achieve their most significant results working with the technology giants like Microsoft. In the work I do coaching and advising organizations, I often find they miss an important untapped opportunity to work with the teams closest to the customer. It is why I invited my next guest to Ultimate Guide to Partnering®. David Lochridge, the General Manager for the Client Success Unit for Microsoft US Financial Services, joins to introduce partners to navigating Microsoft's customer success unit to achieve your greatest results.

David Lochridge is a 22 year veteran in the high-tech industry with experience in sales and customer success leadership, direct and indirect channels, and strategic partnerships. David currently serves as the General Manager of Customer Success for Financial Services. In this role, David leads an organization of Cloud Architects and Customer Success Managers focused on ensuring customers are deriving value from Microsoft's cloud platforms for our Banking, Capital Markets, and Insurance Verticals.

I was excited to welcome David Lochridge to Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I've known David for over a decade, and he is a fantastic leader. He has risen from managing partners at Microsoft as an individual contributor to this massive role leading an organization of over 500 client-facing individuals. More importantly, David exudes empathy, character, and compassion for his people and customers.

In this episode, David decodes his organization to help you better understand the role of partners in driving desired client outcomes, what he and the team look for in a successful partner engagement, and how partners can best engage with Microsoft here.

What You'll Learn

* The genesis of the Microsoft Client Success Unit and its role in the Microsoft field organization.

* How Customer Success Account Managers (CSAMs) and partners can best engage to drive mutual customer outcomes.

* Why partners are critical and how they should engage with his organization.

* Lessons learned about successful partnering and unique and valuable career advice for our listeners.

It was great to spend time with my friend David Lochridge. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion as much as I enjoyed welcoming this extraordinary partner-centric leader to Ultimate Guide to Partnering®.

Other episodes designed to help you decode Microsoft.

* 129 - How Partners achieve their greatest results working with Microsoft with Cameron Lim, Director of ISV Partners.

* 124 - Targeted - to Accelerate Partner Growth, Capture Market Share, and Increase Revenue with Heather Deegans VP of Partner Marketing.

* 134 - How Partners Achieve Their Greatest Results with Microsoft's Industry Cloud Strategy? with Toby Bowers, GM for Industry Apps and Data Marketing.

* 123 - Push Through Boundaries - As a Growth Mindset and Empathy Unlock Potential - Part Two with Merrie Williamson

Links & Resources

* Find David Lochridge on LinkedIn.

* Microsoft Financial Services

* <a href="https://theultimatepartner.